Creative Life Midwife

Inspiring Artistic Rebirth

Tales of a Gratitude Convert: How Writing A Love Letter to My Eyeglasses Caused a HUGE shift

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There was a time when I would describe myself as a “Gratitude Convert”. I had been wayyyy over the top cynical about what I called the whole “phoneys with their attitude of gratitude nonsense!” yet several years ago all that shifted.

I am now a proponent of gratitude from the first hand knowledge of its power in my life. Period.

My practice isn’t what it used to be, though.  I can’t even explain why.  Yesterday and today, I “got” gratitude even more deeply, even as a long time gratitude practitioner. I am thinking I will Re-Start my practice by doing exactly what I did yesterday. Read on to see what I mean:

I read a prompt yesterday when I was in a moment of “I want to write but I just don’t feel inspired by anything!” and voila, my purple eyeglasses caught my attention.  I wrote for sixty seconds. I didn’t come up with anything particularly brilliant, but it – and they – helped me to see into gratitude a bit more deeply.

You know, feeling meaningful gratitude for those every day, mundane items in our lives that we would function less well if we didn’t have them.

I decided to pull the prompt out and write a thank you/love letter to my eyeglasses. Before you read my love letter, find something of yours that is right there, within an arm length. Set it beside or in front of you as you read my love letter.

If you want to feel even more deeply, read my love letter aloud.

Beloved Eyeglasses,

You tirelessly sit on the bridge of my nose, asking for nothing but the occasional cleaning. You help me to see things I could not see without you. Even now, as I get more mature and take you off and leave you places carelessly, you don’t complain.

You never get up and leave me. It is I who consistently leave you.

I feel your generous smile when I put you back up there, straddling my nose, aligning with my ears, fulfilling your sole purpose: to help me see.

Oh, beloved Italian purple eyeglasses, Katherine keeps telling me to get a new pair, that you don’t work as well as you once did for me, that I shouldn’t have to take you off all the time but… I can’t bring myself to switch to a different pair.

Sure, there have been others. My first pair fell into the Delaware River when I was canoeing after my mother warned me, “Don’t go canoeing with your glasses on!” and 

then, there was the time when we sat at the optometrist and I, in a brief moment of prepubescent rebellion told my Mom to just shut up about my going to camp by myself and how brave it was – “Shut up with your praise, Mom!”

You must understand, Purple pair of eyeglasses, this was the back-then equivalent of saying “the “F” word you, Mom…” My glasses have all made me feel braver, I suppose, because with you, I can see.

Without you, everything is blurry.

I remember one spiritual friend of mine insisting glasses are not a real need, that I could use my mind as a visual corrector instead.

I didn’t argue as I don’t usually. I nodded and listened and knew when I have you in my life, my life is simply better.

Oh, beloved purple eyeglasses.

It took this moment for me to see what is right here, in front of my face.

I love you dearly.

Thank you.

Your now even more grateful owner,

Julie

 My eyeglasses are my friend, nearly lifelong friend. Eyeglasses have been a part of my profile since I was in sixth grade and could no longer see the chalk board. I didn’t always wear the same purple pair, but I have always had some always-ready-to-serve eyeglasses close at hand.

I had brief flings with contact lenses and these days, I use them differently, but oh, my glasses. How I love and appreciate the work you do for me.

Writing this love letter meant so much more than just adding them to a list of gratitudes.  I love my gratitude lists and may write them again in the future. For now, I am going to write gratitude love letters to all those mundane, overlooked, underappreciated aspects of my life I normally don’t even notice.

Maybe you’ll even feel compelled to write gratitude love letters along with me.

Try it out. Start with 5 minutes of love for something ordinary.

If you post something – an instagram post, a blog post, anything – please send a link my way. Maybe I’ll end up writing a love letter to YOUR love letter.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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It Feels So Good (To Finally Feel Better)

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Today is the first day in many days I woke up feeling good. Revisiting old works-in-progress, writing new poetry that weaves old in new, combining household chores with wild creativity in the AND space (rather than either-or)How do I forget how good this feels?

I posted a flat-lay of my calendar and hints of my creative process and knew, just knew, I needed to spend five minutes in stream of consciousness, free flow brain dumping to make the day even better.

I’ll admit it: part of this is an invitation for you to create alongside me – so if you’re willing – keep reading and prepare to write, too.

It feels so good to….

Set my timer for five minutes and know I can completely give this time over to my creative process.

It feels so good to listen to classical music just because I like it and not worry about anyone judging my taste or think anything other than “wow, this must really make Julie feel good to listen to classical music!”

It feels so good to have my diffuser going as I listen to classical music and write. It feels so good to ask myself questions and have conversations not with my higher self but with this self – the me that is right now inhabiting this imperfect body in this scratchy time in our culture that sometimes looks like thunder storms are brewing and then I remember, “I sort of, no not sort of – I enjoy thunder storms.”

It feels good to smile, gently, truthfully – and feel it get wider as I think “Mona Lisa, in my imagination anyway, would be proud.”

It feels so good to have conversations over breakfast with Emma and Samuel, to invoke Samuel’s creativity and watch his non-poker face as I mention his gifts in the way of seeing. “Samuel is a really good photographer” I say and Emma says, “He has a really good eye. I don’t.”

“Ahhh, practice will help that,” I tell Emma. “I’m like you. Samuel is a natural.”

That just feels sacred and holy, moments we would often brush aside as we exfoliate our memories and our presences.

It feels so good to reorganize and tidy up a bit. It feels so good to put my hands in the suds as I wash dishes and clean the counters not in an angry “Oh I have to do this and I hate it” but “oh, I am so glad this will look so bright in a few minutes and the way this stuff smells….mmmmm” and yes. It all feels so good.

I hear the applause on my timer peter our and it tells me this particular moment in good times writing is over.

I am grateful I took the moment. I am grateful you are reading. I am grateful for feeling better this morning than I have for a long time.

Now, your turn. And now you write….

=      =      =      =

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

 

 

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Write It – Whatever You Claim as “It” Right Now. Just Write It.

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I didn’t think about it, I just did it. I took the moment to take a breath and look at it. Look at what was there. And I wrote. I wrote of a picture of nothing and I found so much more than I knew was there.

The short, sweet paragraph above is the Pollyanna version. The rampant negative self-talk edition goes like this:

“What the hell are you doing? When will you stop steeping yourself in self importance and realize no one cares? Do you hear me? No one cares. No one thinks like you do nor would they ever want to. Who takes pictures of shadows on the wall and brags about it? You aren’t looking at a scene of a Hawaaian beach with your perfect middle aged body (HA! AS IF!) and your stock photo kids going to important schools doing volunteer work with the homeless while voluntarily working at non profits for a pittance because you have more money than you know what to do with? That’s what people want to see. Not shadows on the wall that have no meaning dumbshit idiot.”

Gee. That makes me want to write more.

The thing is: when we push through that globby mess that comes on either side of the truth and continue moving forward in the space of what is – anyway, however wherever whatever, our words will find our way no matter what sort of writing you are doing.

You can take your brain dump about the shadows on the wall and relate that back to your work as a copywriter or portrait painter or hotel manager. Write yourself a prompt, “What does this image say about pareto planning for office managers” and before you negate the question write your way into it.

Write your way into and through whatever is in front of you.

Finally give yourself the freedom to say whatever it is you need to say to the world.

Yes, I wrote the above words in a five minute free writing Brain Dump. I didn’t edit or think, I just wrote. This morning when I was still in bed and not feeling well physically (I still don’t) I saw this – and took a photo:

I set my phone timer to five minutes wrote into my phone notes section.

Shadows of mulberry leaves etched in my sky blue walls promise nothing and I write them, anyway. I only now notice my fading, needs to be reupholstered couch is also covered with leaves, sketched against blue, waiting to be noticed and remembered.
These last 24 and a few more hours have little within them I want to continue to carry beyond these words. My thirst recollects being quenched, my feet remember feeling strong and optimistic, my eyes remember looking straight ahead, determined and magnetized by the eastern horizon as blank slates of a new day rose to greet me with fluid consistency.
What changed?
What blighted my perception?
What is it that makes me surrender to even a moment lost to its residual calling?
Today I stared at losses of two particulars, non abstractions and shrugged. My muscles go limp and I slither down the slide. 
5 minutes. Done.

Now it’s your turn. Write for your five minutes. Take a photo of whatever is in front of you and allow that to inspire you for a mere five minutes at your keyboard or in your notebook or writing into your phone notes section as if you were texting a friend.

For a bonus, set your timer for another 5 minutes and ask yourself, “How does this relate to my current (project, plan, challenge) in my work life?” and write for 5 more minutes. No planning, no forethought just write.

If you are in our Facebook Group – the link is here – post a photo and your writing in a safe space.

If you aren’t in our facebook group, post a comment here or email me at juliejs@creativelifemidwife.com

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

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What is Calling You to Attention: Write it out to Make Positive Change in Your Life Now

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Last week I wrote for five minutes using this prompt image I created.

Mondays are my day to “pay attention” oftentimes after weekends which are prone to distraction.

I have only made minor edits to my “in the moment” writing using the #5for5BrainDump method.

There are so many distractions as I sit here and attempt to write for five minutes about awakening love for my writing process. I see a broom and want to sweep, I look at the clock and I want to assemble lunch for my children and get out into the money making flow “hurry it up hurry it up hurry it up!” I heaer in my inner ear. Oh, Lord I can’t do it all – my anxiety reaches for my throat to shut my voice – my writing voice – down.

Five minutes. That’s all.

My fingers continue to move, on the keyboard focused.

Reawaken love for the process.

Let go of end result. Welcome bad or mediocre or lukewarm results. (Youch!) Yes, even lukewarm.

Awaken to the process being enough. This is so un-pilgrim-esque: there must be results.  My inside habits shriek!

There must be a something in order to continue I can’t just continue for a nothing that makes no sense.

*Note to self: the results come from the on-going practice. When I re-read this five minute writing, I discover content possibilities even in this short chunk of writing. I find instantly solutions for people who seek my programs, my coaching, my books and courses.

Oh, yeah, there’s that.

Process is worth all of the wonder and exhilaration of  what other peole call “results” that I have had as a part of writing for five minutes a day – being on a best seller list or having twenty five people pay a thousand dollars to hear me speak.

People are pushing me and I am welcoming it.

My community is rising up to greet me and say “Bring your work forward with and for us” it is almost surreal, beloveds, almost surreal.”

If it was a job.

Is it still less than five minutes?

I hear the coffee pot call me, the coffee pot that has been creating really tasty coffee lately.

I think of the squirrel and planning and play. And me. And love. And movement.

And applause. All that in five minutes.

Now it is YOUR turn to write. Ready?

Set your timer for five minutes. I use the online timer under this link here.    

Now look back up at the image and either hand write the prompt or type it into a document. Press go on your timer. No editing, no forethought, just writing. Now.

You’ve got this… What is calling for my attention is…. 

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links below to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

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This Exact Gratitude: Origin Unknown – Result? Remarkable

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The date of this exact gratitude list that gave birth to this (nearly over) mini-retreat/soulful social media quiet time is unclear. I remember sitting in my car, scribbling the list  it – but exactitude? It won’t matter in the long run. It doesn’t even matter now, a week or so later.

I wrote:

I am grateful for the ability to communicate.

I am grateful for the beauty of words.

I am grateful for the people who read the words I toss, cry and mindfully set down upon blue lined paper.

I am grateful for whatever it is I manage to create today (because I know I will. Eventually anyway.)

I am grateful to know I will not judge quantity or quality or relevance of the words and objects I create today.

I am grateful I am able to move my pen across the page. I am grateful words fall off the tip so effortlessly.

I am grateful there are papers to catch the words I write in cursive (and it looks pretty!) I’m grateful for pencil sharpeners.

I am grateful for crape myrtle trees and finches and mourning doves.

I am grateful for enthusiastic young people (I sound like an old farm-hand) who just got promoted who still have a vision for their lives that includes accepting whatever happens with grace and building upon those circumstances, whichever, with grace.

Today I am grateful for the years I have been writing and sharing consistently. That “old stuff” is so current, so accessible and ready.

It created the plan and execution of that plan. Edit to evolve and the mighty, beneficent yes shines through.

My mission is to daily “gather our word-love community to collaborate and create a ritual, path, method to save/preserve/curate and continue to breathe heart into our collective life work.”

Daily, recognize and claim my place as a singular and sacred expression of life itself and a gift from the divine to the world – meant for taking action with passionate gratitude to join the flow because I know this world is a place of healing, wonder and wholeness where all know each one is welcome.

= = =

Since I re-visited this time of creative process last Wednesday, I have repeated these declarations and oh, have they ever helped me not only in my daily direction, but also in casting my future and present vision.

This exact gratitude list may have unknown origins, but the continued growth and rebirth as a result of gratitude is blanketing my life. It is grounding me and lifting me toward heaven.

It’s been a while since I felt like this.

Today I am remembering and standing on this strength to continue as I declare daily: I recognize and claim my place as a singular, unique and sacred expression of life itself and a gift from the divine to the world – meant for taking action with passionate gratitude to join the flow because I know this world is a place of healing, wonder and wholeness where all know each one is welcome.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed media artist whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

Check out the links above to follow her on a bunch of different social media channels, especially if you find the idea of a Word-Love Party bus particularly enticing.

 

 

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Writer’s Affirmation in Practice – “My Writing Flows Easily”…..

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This is an example of what happens using the #5for5braindump method of writing. I needed to write and it wasn’t flowing so I borrowed an earlier affirmation and instantly the words flowed and had a new insight right at the end. Fantastic!

“My writing flows easily. I deserve to feel excellent about what I create now and always.”

I know there is a disconnect between my satisfaction and my completion of my creative projects. I know it is garbled and jagged and twisted where it used to be easier to sort through and act like the Nike Slogan, “Just do it” and I also know – with absolutely clarity – my creative production and satisfaction was much higher when I took moments in time to create with laser-beam intensity.

“My writing flows easily. I deserve to feel excellent about what I create now and always.”

I allow myself that intensity when I let go completely of other people’s needs and allow the deep contentment of focused writing (conversation, love-making, sketching) even if it is only for a five-minute time segment, my whole being perks up when I say “YES! Take five and create, do, make something now, with love passion and focus.”

What throws me off is my cluttered workspace and I can’t find THE exact pencil or the notebook that has that just right quote or…. For my daughter it is when her absolute right outfit is in the laundry basket rather than hanging up in her closet, ready to be worn.

I almost stopped to “think” when actually I think what I was doing was critiquing myself either for not being a better laundress or a better daughter-laundress trainer. Literally that thought has made my stomach gurgle.

See how easy it is to get caught up in self-recrimination?

My five minutes are up.

Even though my stomach hurts now and it didn’t before, I feel better.

“My writing flows easily. I deserve to feel excellent about what I create now and always.”

 

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Writers & Creatives: Passionate Detachment MAY be Your Best Friend –

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I started writing this as a five minute brain dump (#5for5BrainDump) and then discovered… I hadn’t started my timer. Nonetheless, I loved the content so here it is – unedited and raw but about ten minutes worth.

I wrote from the quote you see below –

“Attachment is the great fabricator of illusions; reality can be obtained only by someone who is detached. ”
― Simone Weil

Passionate Detachment is a theory/term I made up roughly fifteen years ago from a conversation with a painting contractor while we talked about small running backs one hot day in Bakersfield.

I’m sure there are similar concepts but I enjoy the paradox and how it sounds, the variety of vowels and consonants.

Passionate detachment: going for your goal with all you’ve got and not being attached to the results of your efforts. Be entranced, delighted and full throttle, like the five-foot-six-inch high school running back who puts his head down and runs right through the huge defensive linemen and heads toward the end zone without worrying about the two-hundred-pound tackle launched in his direction.

Sports analogies work in the US.

It is the painter who splashes paint for hours on end on her masterpiece, not concerned with commercial endeavors yet knowing if this painting resonates with the right audience and her art dealer gets this painting in front of the right people it will change EVERYTHING and yet she just goes for it – she may have visualized and strategized and held countless meetings but the bottom line is she loves how the paint smells and how it feels to move it on the canvas, how the expression on that face she just created reminds her of her first grade teacher, Miss Foley, when she told her “Happy Mother’s Day” with the sweet purity of a seven-year-old who loves her single-not-a-parent-yet-teacher-who-obviously –loves-children.

Passionate detachment says “I will go after success AND I will do what I love, regardless of how wacky some people may think I am in doing so.”

Passionate detachment says, “Make that slightly offbeat declaration about your plans on Facebook in front of everyone you know (and a few people you met once in passing who friended you) and then, by gosh and by golly, take action in the direction of that wild dream no one thinks you will ever really do.

Passionate detachment says, “I don’t know how I’m going to do this, but I am going to start because I know Plato once said something like ‘The beginning is the most important part of the work’ and if I just talk about beginning but don’t actually start, it is worth nothing. And my vision and I are both worth a  whole lot of something so here… I…. “ and then, the passionately detached person takes that leap.

She moves her pencil on the blank page. He makes that phone call to that investor he met while riding pool on Uber in Los Angeles. They sign that contract to rent that space for the event they have wanted to hold and place the ad and talk to five more people than they’re comfortable speaking to because they are passionate and they are detached. They know they are worth every action and their vision is worth every small and not-so-small risk.

They are passionately detached.

(Sometimes brain dumps are interrupted by phones ringing and sometimes they end with applause.)

How do you create with passionate detachment?

 

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Choose to Be Awake: Laughter, Meditation, Writing (& Writing Prompt)

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Last night I sat in a group meditation and had the unbelievable desire to roll around on the floor laughing. In my heartful imagination I was, in fact, rolling around on the floor, laughing. My mind took over, though, believing this was wholly unpleasant for all the others gathered stoically on the floor so peacefully.

I held my laughter in my smile and in my mind, probably not being the perfect meditator sitting with my mind and heart wide open like…

Yet my mind is wide awake and open when I roll on the ground laughing “hysterically” isn’t it?

I sit at my desk and laugh a bit to see how it really feels to laugh even jovially.

(My free writing genie says “How many ways are there to laugh? How many ways are there to describe a ‘brand’ of laughter? Good prompt, dear one, good prompt!)

When I laugh my core gets a workout, automatically. I don’t have to think about it and today, I think to put my hands on my belly not to hold it but to almost worship it? Dare I worship my own (the culture I swim in says too round) belly?

I think I’ll try that again. How about you try it with me.

Hands on belly and…. Giggle, laugh, chuckle.

I notice when I “try” to laugh, the top of my belly shakes a bit but when I am suddenly caught with a memory that turns the laughter toward truth, more of my body is involved. I throw my head back and my hair tickles my shoulders. I can smell the perfume I grazed my skin with after I curlved my hair. I can feel the shaking in my thigh and down my shoulders to my elbows and my hands atop my belly accept the ride like my children did as babies when we played, “I had a little pony and his name was Jack” and they mimicked horse riding in my lap which almost always lead to celebrations of laughter.

After our group meditation I told Lindsay, our leader,  there was one point I had a near overwhelming desire to roll around the floor laughing.

Her response, wide eyed and smiling, “That would have been great!”

Remembering the words of William Stafford “A Ritual to Read to Each Other” that inspired this writing today.

“For it is important awake people be awake,

Or a breaking line may discourage them back to sleep:

The signals we give – yes or no, maybe –

Should be clear: the darkness around us is deep.”

Your prompt:

Today I choose to be more awake to….. write for 5 minutes without editing, judgment or forethought. Simply write, let your words float across the page. And if you feel like laughing uncontrollably at any point, permission is always granted here. There are no rights or wrongs, there is just writing.

Here I am writing by the graveside of Louisa May Alcott, the author of Little Women – a highly successful book that hasn’t been out of print for more than 100 years.

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-media artist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming in soon!

 To contact Julie to schedule a Writing or Creative Life Coaching Session, call or text her at 661.444.2735.

 

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How the Language of Every Day Creates…. Contentment, A-ha Moments & More

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What would you say if I told you this post was built upon two five minute writing sessions and a life inspired by challenges and overcoming fear, a long held and unrecognized until recently addiction?

Here’s the thing: I believe in writing in 5 minute chunks. This is well documenting. Allowing words to flow and then massaging them later simply works.

In the next paragraph there is a quote by William Stafford. I read this quote and a poem (tomorrow a video of me reading  it will be at the bottom of this post) and the rest of the words tumbled forth, musical notes accompanied by a five-minute exercise I created called the #5for5BrainDump.

Join me, now, on this word adventure.

“When you make a poem you merely speak or write the language of every day, capturing as many bonuses as possible and economizing on losses; that is, you come aware to what always goes on in language, and you use it to the limit of your ability and your power of attention to the moment.”

William Stafford

I challenged myself to write poetry this time: no institution or celebratory month is guiding me.

It is purely  my desire to practice, my will to dig more deeply, bring to life my idea that poetry creation might help me to figure stuff out a little bit better than… not.

I have a word pool (a collection of words to stir up the process and serve as a sort of paint-on-a-writing-palette and my timer is moving.

Grind groove habit hang up “into” manner matter of course mode observance.

It (fear)  comes upon me it seems without warning, like the breeze suddenly lifting my hair from my shoulders

Flirting with me, making me feel more than slightly feminine and deep inside my core whispers, “You are a girl, this is what it is, sink into that feeling of something else moving your hair, giving you that weightless out of control oh, doesn’t that feel just right” feeling and I stop, my stomach beginning to churn, “no, it isn’t like that it isn’t like that.”

Is it like the way you feel when you are dancing, grooving, moving your body in a way that feels slightly to the left of heaven and full steam ahead into paradise when you catch someone looking with the eyebrow raised just so and the tongue on the tip of the cluck so you skip a beat and stop and slow and sludge becomes the order of the day and you forget you love to dance and you certainly don’t get anything except regret back anytime soon.

It is a matter of course then? An item on the daily to-do?

Feel fear and be paralyzed, all the time?

How to invite fear and expand it horizontally and vertically in 5 simple blood curdling steps?

Take five doses of fear daily and be sure to get nowhere in life except frightened. Repeat doses daily, add another dosage if nothing happens.

I almost stop typing because it is so preposterous and I know the adage of “what we focus on grows” so I remind myself, “This is just a game.”

Passionate Possibilities otherwise known as my week long Daily to-do list:

When I feel fear creep into my space, take note of it. Pre-program responses such as these to say internally and aloud if it helps. . “Fear – I see you for who you are. You are not welcome here. Good bye! Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear creep into my space, I will feel my feet on the ground – every inch of connection noted to the floor, the carpet, the sand, the grass, the concrete and I will express gratitude for the feeling of connection. I will repeat, “Today, I choose courage.”

When I feel fear mocking my femininity through seduction or flirtation, I will note it and remember the potent heroes and sheroes of the feminine. I will reach my hands out and build a bridge with them. I will affirm myself, “This is a bridge over fear to courage. Today, I choose peace.” (The word after today I choose may change according to what feels the most resonant with that day.)

My five-minute-timer went off about three minutes ago.

I elected to continue writing because the insights were continuing to be born. I knew actively giving them space would net more benefit for me and for you, my readers, so I chose to stay with it because today I am choosing courage, peace, poetry and you and me.

Who will be brave enough to tell me about your fear or better yet, who else is brave enough to begin building that bridge from fear into courage?

Maybe you’ve built it partially before or maybe you just haven’t used the bridge you once built and it requires some slight adjustments.

In any and all of those cases, know I am here to listen, to sit alongside you and together we have the passion and collective power to craft intentionally toward your most vivid, aligned with your vision future.

To request an appointment with me to talk, text or message about my programs and upcoming possibilities, please fill out the contact form on my website.

The world is waiting for your words: you are worth taking the time to gain clarity and get your voice on the page and into the world now.

Coming Up: 30 Days of Writing Passionately

Julie Jordan Scott inspires people to experience artistic rebirth via her programs, playshops, books, performances and simply being herself out in the world.  She is a writer, creative life coach, speaker, performance poet, Mommy-extraordinaire and mixed-mediaartist  whose Writing Camps and Writing Playgrounds permanently transform people’s creative lives. Watch for the announcement of new programs coming through the end of 2017.

 

 

 

 

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Love & Fear & Pain and How Writing Always Provides a Path to Feeling Better: Every Single Time

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It happened again today, something happened that I long to write about but I don’t want to write because I don’t want to feel the pain of it.

I am still awake at 2:01 am. A fly is buzzing about my otherwise quiet room and I may open the window to tune into a bird who is singing outside the window, or was, before I attempted to construct this sentence.

I open the windows, I set my timer and the bird no longer sings.

A car drives by, a candle flickers next to me: no bird song.

What a moment ago brought infinite delight may so easily be clouded by unnecessary thought pollution: “I did something wrong, I didn’t appreciate the bird so the bird flew away. Perhaps the mulberries went stale from the power of complaints about them earlier today. My neighbor hates my mulberry tree and probably hates birds, too. Especially when they poop purple.”

I take my hands off the keyboard.

I listen to the silence, coaxing the bird back.

Here’s the thing: I can’t coax the bird back, I can only coax myself back to the keyboard, one word at a time. I remembered earlier today throughout the day, “I feel better when I write.”

The several days ago version of me must have known this version of me would be appearing, the version of me that gets buried in sadness, that gets tugged at by insecurity and worry and fear.

I was startled by the sound of applause, my timer setting announcing my five minutes of writing is done.

I examine my fingers, distraction addiction, and I decide to “re-up” for a second five minutes, focusing on love. Love as a prompt, I think, toning “love” in between sentences, phrases and quotes of love.

Like the Beatles singing, “All you need is love…” and the cynical version of me shoves a raspberry in her mouth and blows out in disagreement, blotting the thought from my consciousness. Love: is a many splendored thing.

I don’t understand lyrics and writing like that. What is a “splendored thing” anyway?
Reminds me of the many ways NOT to use jargon in writing. Splendid I understand, superb I get. These are good, more than adequate.

Splendored is silly almost junior high aged attempt to be smart sounding?

Love is. Love IS! That’s the perfect love sentence and in fact, is quite grounding.

Love is patient, as Paul says. Love is kind. Love is purple – lavender, the color of sunrise and sunset and transitions. Love will keep you steady during transitions and times of difficulty. Love sometimes leans in and holds you when you need it. Sometimes love wants to show you a slightly different way and you might even feel hurt by it (like the… and the applause comes again and I decided to stop before I ramble down that lane that might come across as negative.

It is 2:14. The time twice a day that remembers Valentine’s Day.

As almost always, I feel better now than when I started. Which is why I write and suggest, so strongly, other people write, too. Just let your words flow, don’t worry about grammar or syntax or rules you long ago learned and forgot.

Just move your pencil, your pen, your fingers on the keyboard.

And now I have a writing prompt for tomorrow.

Things just keep getting better.

 

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